six thousand silent days

     
     
     
I met love in the open      
met it at 19      
and didn’t know it    
figured it for easy come easy go    
watched it live      
walked from it    
year by year    
by making work matter more    
than her    
and watched love die in the dirt    
unknowing    
     
came home one night to her tears    
blues songs      
“there’s another man”    
then knew love truly      
in the hammerbeat of regret    
that lasted more years    
than I’ll ever say aloud    
     
17 years later    
walked down a pathway    
to a house in suburbia    
to meet her again    
her but not her    
3 kids    
her man at work    
     
said hello    
stepped forward to each other    
hugged too long    
stepped back    
both embarrassed by it    
caught out    
     
regathered    
hugged again    
and welcomed in    
to meet her youngest    
a boy    
to young for school    
knelt to shake his hand    
“gidday man”    
he held my eye    
and I saw ghosts in him    
my own children    
unborn    
arrived but undelivered    
because we were young then    
and people said      
it was the right thing to do    
     
so we did it    
     
I stayed kneeling a moment    
him in front of me      
her waist at my side    
my ear to her    
almost    
to that sacred place    
where saplings grew    
     
stood again    
     
held her      
not hugging    
     
we broke apart    
remembering where we were    
     
got to polite talking    
sat    
drank coffee    
looked at photos on the wall    
her tribe    
her man    
her 17 years    
     
an hour later    
late for my plane    
hugged again    
took every moment of it    
banked it    
     
will admit I thought things    
unkind things    
for a man I’ve never met    
then shook my head    
     
not my right    
to think ill    
of what is    
     
got back in my car    
straightened my back    
one wave and gone    
her stood in the driveway    
with her boy on her hip    
that house behind her    
     
paradise    
maybe    
     
     
I’m not a man    
who wrecks homes    
and know she’s not that kind either    
so there it stays    
     
won’t be back    
     
     
     
     
     
they say something about time    
and healing    
and wounds    
     
no it doesn’t